by H. L. Burke
“What is it?” Fade popped up beside her. His dark eyes glistened in the faint light from her moon-lamp as he grabbed her by the shoulders.
Pain chased away the last of her blurriness, and she bent down to hold her own leg. “Cramp. Bad, bad, bad cramp.”
He pushed aside the blankets and pried her fingers from her leg. “Here. Let me see what I can do.” He rubbed his large hands up and down the back of her calf. “Is this where it is?”
“Uh-huh.” She gritted her teeth, leaning against the headboard. “Oh, ouch. Ouch. Ouch.”
“Easy. Deep breaths.” He soothed.
She tried to think of anything but the pain.
“Did you remember to take your magnesium supplement?” Fade worked his fingers into her aching muscles.
She blanched, and he paused.
“Am I hurting you?”
“Yes, but in a good way. It’s loosening up.” She moaned softly.
He arched his eyebrows pointedly. “Magnesium?”
“I’m pretty sure I did.” She avoided his eyes.
“Pretty sure?”
“What are you my doctor now?” The cramp eased, so she pulled her leg away from him.
“I’m just saying, the doctor said if you had leg cramps it was probably because you weren’t getting enough magnesium, and you’re having leg cramps—”
“Okay, Dad. I’ll go pop a pill.” Prism slid out of bed, crossed their bedroom, and entered the bathroom. She leaned against the sink to rest for a moment. Soreness lingered along the back of her leg. Why did this have to be so hard?
“You sure you’re okay?” Fade came to stand behind her, his face reflected in the mirror in front of her. Concern deepened the lines around his eyes.
She forced a smile. “Yeah, mostly. It’s silly, but I had some naive idea that being a sable would mean pregnancy would be easier on me. Maybe even that labor wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, we’re supposed to be stronger and more resilient than normal people, aren’t we? Shouldn’t that mean I get to breeze through pregnancy like it’s only a minor inconvenience?”
He massaged her shoulders. “We’re not invulnerable. I don’t know about you, but I feel pain on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, I guess, and if I’m not immune to leg cramps and morning sickness, I’m guessing contractions aren’t going to be a walk in the park.” She sighed. “I really wish I had someone to talk to about it. My mom died before I was old enough to think to ask questions like, ‘hey, what’s it like birthing a baby when you’re superpowered?’”
Fear emptied her chest. Her mother had been dead for over two decades, and Prism hadn’t let herself think about the loss much for half of that. Now, however, the lack of a mother loomed before her like a chasm in her path. How was she going to get through this with no one to go to for advice?
Fade’s lips brushed against the back of her neck. “Maybe there are support groups? Someone online you can talk to?”
“I don’t want a stranger, though. I want ... I want my family.” She leaned against him.
“If it helps, I’ve been reading up a lot on the subject. Not exactly firsthand experience, but I downloaded like six parenting books and one on child birth last week—we can compare notes.”
She turned and eyed him skeptically. “Really?”
He shrugged. “I like to be prepared. If you want some suggestions, I can get you a list of—”
She held up her hands. “Fix-it-Fade is great when we’re dealing with supervillains, but right now, can I get quietly-supportive-Fade back, please?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Mischief played about the corner of his mouth before he pulled her into an embrace and stroked her hair, cooing gently. “Poor Lucia, you sweet baby. Let me be your strong silent—”
“Oh, cut it out.” She laughed and pushed him away. “You’re an idiot.”
“You married me,” he quipped.
“Yeah, I did that, didn’t I?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I better take that magnesium, huh?”
“Doctor’s orders,” he whispered. He tasted her lips with a feather-light kiss. “Think you can get back to sleep?”
“Not sure.” She covered her eyes. “I need to, though. I have a final meeting to go over Wildfyre’s plea deal tomorrow. If I’m not on top of it, we could miss something. As much as I would like to trust the committee, they’ve never had a villain literally putting his freedom in their hands like this before. I want to be sure he gets a fair shake.”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
A knot formed in Prism’s stomach. Even though she’d only met Wildfyre three days before, the fact that he’d come to her, putting so much faith in her ability to help him, made his rehabilitation feel personal. If she failed him, she’d regret it forever.
“Look, you said you wanted supportive Fade, right?” He kissed the top of her head. “How about I make you a cup of hot tea, decaf, of course, and then give you a foot massage?”
Her muscles softened at the thought. “Hmm,” she purred. “That sounds amazing. How will I repay you?”
“I’ve got some ideas.” He leaned in for a deep kiss. When he withdrew, he winked.
She tsked at him before deciding that owing him could be fun. “How about tomorrow morning in the shower?” she lowered her voice to a seductive hum.
His smile widened. “Deal.”
A few minutes later, back in the bedroom, Prism rearranged the pillows so she could sit up more comfortably as Fade left the room. Realizing she had no idea what time it even was, she reached for her phone on the nightstand. She winced.
2:28.
If she didn’t get to sleep again, that would mean she’d be working on less than three hours of sleep. Why hadn’t she gone to bed earlier? Well, she knew why. She’d wanted to go over the documents for Wildfyre’s plea deal one more time and then even when she did lie down to sleep, her brain kept rehearsing what she would say and do the next day. She groaned. What she needed was something less stressful to focus on.
She opened the browser on her phone and searched for baby names again. After a little bit of scrolling, giggling at some of the quirkier options, her vision blurred. She put on a relaxing music playlist and closed her eyes. The baby within her stirred, and she rested both hands on top of her stomach and sank into the bliss of it.
The door opened. “Still awake?”
“Barely,” she murmured.
“So I suppose you don’t care about the tea and the foot rub, then?”
“No way, you aren’t getting out of our deal that easy.” She murmured, still not opening her eyes.
She heard the clink as he placed a mug on her bedside table then the mattress dipped as he sat beside her feet. He cupped her toes in his hands and pressed his thumbs gently into her sole, starting in tight circles. She relaxed.
The world grew fuzzier. The baby fluttered within her. The darkness seemed to hum about her—no, it was humming, vibrating in fact, buzzing with a quiet but oddly familiar intensity. She fell into it, unable to feel Fade’s touch any longer. No, all that remained was the strange but tantalizing power surrounding her, permeating her. It seeped into her.
The warm energy sank into her chest and wrapped around her consciousness. She jerked awake—but not awake. No, she couldn’t feel Fade’s hands or the bed beneath her or even her own body. She’d been pulled somewhere outside the physical, somewhere where it was just her awareness and ... and fear. A tangible quaking fear that shivered around her like an icy breeze shaking the windows.
“What’s going on?” Her voice came out in a faint whisper.
Then it happened. The fear solidified into a presence, a faint essence that she knew all too well.
“Aiden,” she whimpered.
“Can you hear me? Please! Someone needs to hear me!” His voice called to her, instantly familiar in spite of the aching forever since she’d heard it.
“Aiden!” she screamed.
“Please, I can’t ... I can’t break through. I
need help.” Tears drenched his words, his voice raw in the same way she remembered it being the day of their father’s funeral. Her heart broke.
“Aiden? Where are you?”
Prism froze. That wasn’t her voice, and it wasn’t Aiden’s. She knew that accent.
“Tanvi?”
“Please!” Aiden’s wail interrupted her confusion. “Please!”
“Lucia?” This time the voice was Fade’s. She ignored it, flailing about in the darkness. She could feel Aiden, his power, his pain.
“I’m here! Aiden, I’m here!”
“Luce, are you all right? What’s wrong?” A hand stabbed through the haze and grabbed her.
She sat up, screaming.
Fade stared at her, chest rising and falling in rapid breaths. “Luce? Can you hear me?”
Her gaze darted around the room, their room, the familiar space she’d shared with him for almost a year. “Yes ...” Her voice quavered. “What happened?”
“You started shaking. At first I thought you were seizing, but you were also ... talking. I don’t think people having seizures do that?” He touched the side of her face. “It scared the hell out of me. Are you okay?”
Trembling, she considered herself. Nothing felt physically off, though her heart still beat frantically. “You said I was talking? What was I saying?”
He lowered his head. “Aiden. You were calling to Aiden.”
She shuddered. “It must’ve been a dream, but it felt—”
A muffled scream echoed through the walls.
Fade leaped to his feet. “Was that Tanvi?”
“I think so.” Prism scrambled after him.
The couple stumbled out the door into the hallway just as the door across the way—Tanvi’s door—burst open. Tanvi sprinted out, crashing into Fade’s chest.
“Easy!” Fade cried as she swung at his face with her fist. His powers responded instantly, and her blow cut harmlessly through him. He solidified and grabbed her by the wrists.
“Let me go! He ... he ... he needs me!” She thrashed against him but not with her full strength. If she’d used that, even Fade wouldn’t have been able to hold her.
“Tanvi!” Prism barked. “Calm down.”
Tanvi rubbed her eyes. “Oh Pris ... I heard him. I heard him calling for help. He ... he needs ... oh ...” She jerked away from Fade but instead of fleeing she sank to the floor and hid her face in her hands. “It was a dream. It had to be a dream, but it felt so real. I swear ... I swear he was really there, using his powers to communicate with me.”
“Who?” Prism breathed, though she already knew.
It can’t be. We can’t have had the same dream. That’s not how dreams work.
“Aiden,” Tanvi sobbed.
Chapter Four
Fade glanced from his wife to her sobbing best friend. Prism hugged herself, her fingers gripping into her arms, eyes stricken.
Pulse still unsteady, he slipped his hand onto her shoulder and eased her a few steps away from Tanvi.
“What the hell is going on?” he whispered.
“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes. “Apparently Tanvi and I just had the same hyper-realistic dream that Aiden was screaming for help—simultaneously.”
He gave a slow nod. “Okay, and that’s possible how?”
“It’s not!” she snapped.
“What?” Both Fade and Prism spun to look at Tanvi who stared at them, mouth agape. “Pris, you heard him too?” Tanvi stumbled to her feet.
Prism blanched but nodded. “And you. I heard you in my dream, shouting for him.”
“And you were in mine.” Tanvi rushed to Prism.
Fade instinctively moved between the two women. As much as he trusted Tanvi, she’d nearly punched his teeth out a moment before, and he wasn’t going to take that chance with Prism and their baby.
Tanvi scowled at him. “Settle down, Fade-o. I only tried to take your head off because I wasn’t awake yet.”
Prism massaged the space between her eyes. “This doesn’t make sense.”
A door down the hall opened, and Keeper emerged wearing a pair of zebra striped pajamas and carrying Yui, his shapeshifter wife, draped over his shoulder in her preferred black cat form.
“What’s all the ruckus?” he asked.
“We’re not sure.” Fade held up his hands. “Somehow Prism and Tanvi had the same dream at the same time.”
“The same nightmare,” Tanvi corrected.
A door a few down from Keeper’s opened, and a bleary-eyed Wildfyre staggered into the hall. Fade tensed. Even though Wildfyre had willingly put the disruptor anklet back on as soon as DOSA agreed to a plea deal, Fade wasn’t sure what to think of the supervillain. A religious reawakening seemed like an awfully convenient excuse for a known terrorist to get close to everyone Fade cared about.
Now, clad in a bathrobe, Wildfyre cautiously approached the other sables. “Everything okay? I thought we were under attack for a minute.”
Keeper murmured a brief explanation, parroting what Fade had told him.
Wildfyre’s eyes widened. “That’s bizarre. What was this dream about to have everyone screaming in the hallway?”
Tanvi’s mouth clamped shut.
Fade focused on Prism who seemed to shrink into herself.
“Take your time,” he whispered. “We don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”
“What’s there to say?” her voice quavered. “It was Aiden’s voice, Aiden’s power, and he was calling to me, but he couldn’t have been because Aiden is dead. He’s been dead for almost two years. He died right in front of me, right here in his damn building because freaking Cosmic—” She collapsed against Fade’s chest, sobbing.
He pulled her closer, his hands gripping the back of her t-shirt. “Easy. Deep breaths.”
“But it can’t have been a dream. People don’t have dreams ... together.” Tanvi hopped from foot to foot.
Understanding flooded Wildfyre’s face, followed swiftly by more confusion. “Yeah, that doesn’t happen unless—” He stopped and scratched the back of his neck.
“Out with it,” Fade said, glaring at him. “Not the time to hold back, Aquina.”
Wildfyre grimaced. “There are some villains who have the ability to project hallucinations.”
“Kind of like the evil version of what Aiden could do,” Tanvi whispered.
“He could do emotions and thoughts, but I don’t think he ever ... if he had the ability to make people hallucinate, he never used it or even talked about it.” Prism peeled herself from Fade’s chest, still sniffling. “The thing is, the energy felt like Aiden. How would a villain approximate that? And why would they want to?”
“Some sort of psychological warfare, usually,” Wildfyre answered. “The guy I knew who could do it worked with a guerilla group in Central America. Could scare hardcore mercenaries literally to death if he was given enough time.”
Fade searched Wildfyre’s face. “How well did you know him?”
“Closer than I’d like, but we were never colleagues,” Wildfyre answered. “There was a point we were courted by the same activist group, but their tactics made me uneasy.”
“Still, kind of a coincidence that we get an attack from similar powers right after you join the team.” Fade took a determined step towards Wildfyre.
Wildfyre shied back. “Look, I’m just trying to be helpful—”
“It’s not that!” Prism stood up straighter, her voice sharp. “I know my brother’s energy. This wasn’t a projection from someone other than Aiden. Maybe it was a dream, a memory of some sort, but ... there wasn’t another presence in the power. Mind-based powers are very intimate. I know Aiden.”
“Aye, but it can’t be Aiden,” Keeper pointed out.
“I know!” Prism’s words came out shrilly.
Fade balked, Tanvi cowered, and Yui gave a sympathetic meow.
Prism shook her head. “I know it’s crazy. I can’t explain it, but somehow ... it’s not
the first time I’ve had dreams where he’s called to me like that. The only thing I don’t understand is it happened to Tanvi at the same time.”
Concern flooded Fade, squeezing his heart. “Luce, as much as I want to believe you, this is hitting close to home. What if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t know.” She drew a deep breath. “I do know that it seems to be over, though, whatever it was. Keeper, can you and Yui do a perimeter check, just to make sure no one has entered HQ tonight? The alarms should’ve gone off if anything like that had happened, but I’d like to be sure.”
“I’ll get on it, lassie.” The older man squeezed her hand before motioning to his pajamas. “Just let me put on some trousers first.”
“I’ll go too,” Tanvi volunteered. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep anyway.”
Fade brushed a stray lock of hair out of Prism’s face. “Go lie down. The tea should still be warm. Try and drink some.”
“I’m fine, Fade,” she whispered. “It ... it was only a dream ... I think.” No fight remained in her eyes, though, and she stepped back into their bedroom without a word of protest.
Wildfyre started to turn away.
“A minute, Aquina,” Fade said.
Wildfyre slowly turned, arms folded across his chest. “What, Curran?”
Fade’s mouth wrinkled. “It’s Powell now, and even before it was that, it hadn’t been Curran in over a decade.”
“My bad.” Wildfyre’s stance relaxed. “Though perhaps that might demonstrate a point. If you’ve changed so drastically since you left the life, why do you have such an attitude about me trying to do the same?”
“I don’t trust things that come easy.” Fade kept his gaze on Wildfyre. “Yeah, I changed, but I did so kicking and screaming. I didn’t just decide to walk away from it all one day and not look back.”
Wildfyre snorted. “Is that how you think I’m doing this?”
“Maybe.” Fade eyed him. “Sparring match, you and me, tomorrow. Let’s say nine?”
Wildfyre scoffed. “Is this some sort of macho ‘let me show you what I’ll do to you if you hurt my friends’ thing? Because believe it or not, Powell, you haven’t been particularly subtle about that since I joined the team. I got the message loud and clear right away.”
